And Then There's The Voting Rights Thing, The DOMA Thing, and The Prop 8 Thing

Why the Supreme Court is considered to have any legitimacy at all is one of those Mysteries we may never be able to settle. The Court has been acting quite lawlessly since... well, some would say, since forever (given Marbury v Madison, after all), but jeeze, they really set the standard for lawless "justice" with Bush v Gore, so I'll just date their detachment from any concept of law and justice on December 12, 2000. Others may disagree.

At least for a while, they were being led around by the nose by a forthright anti-constitutionalist, one Nino Scalia -- who was the motor behind Bush v Gore. Since his descent into full on dementia, however, his theocratic-monarchism has been overshadowed by the technocratic-corporate objectivism of one John Roberts, Esq, which explains why practically every significant decision out of the Marble Halls since his Elevation has turned on some of the most arcane legal reasoning in the Court's long history.

The Voting Rights Act was made inoperative the other day, much to the chagrin of voting rights advocates, I suppose, but the Court had been telegraphing its intentions with regard to the VRA for some time, so the decision was No Surprise. There is no right to vote in the Constitution, something which for some reason has never been remedied or even addressed in any comprehensive way. Instead there have been piecemeal efforts to extend the franchise from white property owning males to various other groups over the centuries, without interfering (much) with the States' Rights principle that the States, not the Central Government, are to decide voter-criteria. It's created some icky, cobbled together monstrosities and made elections far more difficult than they need to be.

This is supposed to represent the Genius of Our Founders, but it's nothing of the kind. It's a gawd-awful mess, and it's been getting worse for many a long year.

But that's really a separate issue than the Voting Rights Act which was a measure passed and renewed by Congresses for decades to ensure that the most egregious state-sanctioned racially discrimintory voting restrictions were done away with. Itg was a way of ensuring black voters -- in particular, but certainly not exclusively -- were brought into the system rather than excluded, despite the outrage of the Good Ol' Boys, especially in the South.

In making the VRA inoperative, the Court has said to the Good Ol' Boys, "Here's your playground back. Don't do anything naughty! Haw, haw!"

These people are sickening.

There has been an ongoing long-standing effort by certain interests to tighten and restrict voting rights nationwide. Now those who would undertake to do so have free rein. But then, what's there to "vote" for anyway?  If they can't control elections from one direction, they're bound and determined to do it from another. So here we go again. It's one reason people flirt with alternatives to Our Model, which is both anachronistic and unjust.

We'll see where this leads, but outwardly it's right back to where things were before the Civil Rights Movement.

Oh, but, they struck down DOMA and let stand gay marriage! Civil Rights Live! Yes, well, this is the kind of trade off you get from this Court. Massive civil injustice (such as the disabling of the VRA) on the one hand, together with a modest and generally cynical extension of "rights" on the other. Take away voting rights, but let people gay-marry to their heart's content. Sounds fair, doesn't it?

As far as I'm concerned, DOMA was a shitty measure, and Prop 8 was just nasty, but the underlying issue was never really dealt with, and it still hasn't been. I've long advocated that government not be in the marriage business at all, that marriage qua marriage be left to the religious institutions to do with as they please. And in that context, gay marriage has been going on for decades in churches and synagogues throughout this troubled land. Some religious institutions forbid it, but some do not. To my way of looking at it, that's how religious liberty works -- and should work.

The government should have nothing (much) to say about it. "Marriage" as such should not be a matter for civil law at all. Instead, all legal unions between couples should be civil unions. And they should be gender neutral. If you want to get gay-married, find a religious institution that will sanction it. There are many. On the other hand, if you want to set up a legal-couple household, regardless of gender, go down to the civil union registry and do so.

Well, of course, this idea is too radical. It would mean changing oodles of other laws, particularly regarding benefits and inheritance and so on and so forth, all of which refer to spousal and marriage and such and we can't do that, let's just legalize gay-marriage and be done with it. Ta-da.

That would be fine if marriage were not a religious sacrament to hundreds of millions. By legally enforcing a change who can obtain that sacrament (albeit from civil authority) and under what conditions, the foundations of rule and social cohesion tremble. Simply by taking marriage out of the gambit of civil authority and leaving it to the tender mercies (or...) of the religious divines, it seems to me the issue and the problem would have been solved neatly and correctly.

But no.

So now we have this strange situation in which in essence the Court has said states can go ahead and restrict the franchise however they want at least until Congress comes up with something new to foster voting rights, and by the way your vote doesn't matter anyway, because the Court will rule any way they want to get the outcome they desire, so ha ha, suckers!

The shameful spectacle of this Court goes on and on and on...

Republicans All The Way Down

Shipoopi-Kabuki

The Dreaded Sequester is now upon us. Apparently. Well, given the Kabuki that is Washington Theater, we never really know whether anything is ever an actual yay or nay -- or even whether it matters -- in that otherworldly realm. They will do what they want and when they want to screw the rest of us, and if that screwage is most effectively accomplished through Sequestration, then so be it.

Now of course in Washington Theater, everything is always the result of Republicans doing something nasty to the Democrats -- who are always, of course, being entirely reasonable and completely powerless.

This has been going on for decades now. The actors and the victors are always the diminishing handful of Republicans -- such as Dame Mitch McConnell, or everyone's least favorite Munster-cousin Paul Ryan. The hapless Dems just take it, whatever "it" may be at the moment, and then when they are not being hapless, they're totally feckless. When their fecklessness fails, they are simply craven.

It is now Iron Law. It was not ever thus, nor need it be thus, but it is thus, and for whatever reason,  the plot cannot be changed. Republicans are the actors in our play. Dems react. If they aren't simply cowering in the corner.

The notion of cutting the federal budget during a now essentially permanent recession seems slightly, somewhat, just a teense counter intuitive, especially given that it is relatively obvious -- even to Republicans and the media who serve them -- that continuing reductions in government workforces are a major drag on economic recovery. Republicans make clear they understand this full well when they scream and fuss about all the military budget cuts and all the military contractors who will be forced to cut back their work-forces because of the Dreaded Sequester. They know full well that their rhetoric about the Government Never Creating A Job is bullshit, but they figure that the Dems are too feckless and craven to counter these lies effectively, and they're too hapless to point out the glaring hypocrisy of paying for endless military spending (on top of the bloated Imperial Domestic Security State)  on the basis of "jobs, jobs, jobs!"

Yeah, well.

This performance on the Washington Stage is being brought to us by a unified company. It includes both parties in Congress and the White House, acting in concert to accomplish certain mutually agreeable ends. Those ends include the fleecing and screwage of the rest of us.

The concept that it is all the Republicans' fault -- or all the Democrats', or Nino Scalia's -- fault is kind of essential myth making and propaganda, intended to maintain division among the Lower Orders. That division is essential for continuing control of said Orders, and that control is necessary for the continued unmolested fleecing and screwage -- which is all Our Betters think the rest of us deserve anyway.

The Dreaded Sequester does little in the context of the overall budget -- because it is such a tiny percentage of overall spending. But because of its focus on bang for the buck, so to speak, the harm caused to ordinary people will be significant -- intentionally. The harm to the poorest among us will be especially harsh, and few will pay much attention because that's the way budget cuts have been implemented for many years now.  But intentional harm to the collapsing middle class will be significant as well.

Obviously, Republicans don't have to worry about what happens to ordinary people in any case because they don't have "constituents" as the term is ordinarily understood. They have client who they serve -- as long as the price is right. Dems may have the same or different clients, but they lack "constituents" as well. The People matter not a whit to the Rulers.

It is so because even when the People become restive, they are still reluctant to do anything that Rulers believe they need pay any attention to. Nobody expects the Paris Commune, but it's well past time to demand something better out of the Washington image machine -- something beyond "it's Republicans all the way down!" (And oh how the "Left" loves to play that game!)

Interestingly, there is some nascent ferment on the Constitutional front, even going so far as to suggest replacing the antiquated, indeed fossilized and ignored, establishing document we have with something appropriate and new. The Voting Rights issue seems to be a trigger to the realization that the establishing document itself is deeply, terminally flawed (because there is no People's right to vote in the Constitution). Regardless of what you believe about the ideology of the Supreme Court majority, if they are going to rule based on what they believe the framers of the Constitution meant, and they will not allow any deviation, then perhaps -- just maybe -- it is time to abolish the whole rickety mess and start over.

Will wonders never cease.

Expanding the Voting Rights Act

Johnson signs the Voting Rights Act... still considered too much too soon by some

Given the nature of "law" and "justice" in this country, it's likely that the Supreme Court will find a way to strike down the Voting Rights Act and will leave it up to a dysfunctional Congress to rectify the consequences... or not as the case may be. Neo-Jim Crow, here we come.

For generations states have been trying to get out from under the onerous burden of holding free and fair elections in which voting is not "unduly" restricted, and given the successful efforts of many of them to interfere with the voting rights and opportunities of their citizens these last few years, it's clear they are champing at the bit to be liberated from oversight and get on with the business of limiting the franchise to the right sort of people once again -- free at last! Thank gawdal mighty, we free at last!

Though there have been no overt efforts to "unduly" restrict the franchise in New Mexico, there have been a number of ham-handed actions by county clerks and elections officials to gum up the works, most notoriously in Sandoval County in the last general election when far too few voting machines were provided for large-population precincts leading to unprecedentedly long lines and hours long waits to vote. It was so bad that the governor herself came down from Santa Fe and handed out bottles of water and snacks to those in line.

For the most part, elections in New Mexico are handled smoothly and relatively well given the vast empty expanses of the state and the heavy concentration of population in the Abq Metro area as well as the relatively primitive procedures employed -- such as (eek) hand-counting ballots.

If the Voting Rights Act is struck down, it's widely assumed that many states will revert to pre-VRA policies and procedures, which essentially means reverting to Jim Crow exclusionary laws and policies. What most Americans seem not to understand is that Jim Crow-style laws and policies were not limited to the South, they were practically universal throughout the country, and in many cases, the first order of business was disenfranchisement of large segments of the population. This was unfortunately considered a 'progressive' means of 'curbing corruption.'

So it is likely to be again if Congress doesn't intervene, and there is no sign whatever that this Congress will do any such thing.

Millions of course are already disenfranchised by the fact that they are on some list somewhere of convicted felons or other miscreants. Of course, non-citizens are unable to vote in any case. So part of the process of disenfranchisement includes restrictions on citizenship. In effect, those disenfrancised become a separate class of non-citizens who can be subjected to all kinds of mistreatment with impunity -- as they were when time was.

Those who advocated for the Voting Rights Act knew full well what these consequences were, and that was part of the motivation for the Act in the first place. It's not solely a matter of being able to vote, it is a matter of citizenship itself, and the dignity that is supposed go with it.

Apparently, the issue before the Court is whether things have reformed enough in the subject states that there is no longer any need for the oversight and conditions imposed on them by the Voting Rights Act. Practically everyone seems to think that the conservative majority of the Court will agree that the time has come to lift these provisions and overturn the Act, but not because things are necessarily permanently better. No, the issue now is that voting restrictions are being emplaced outside the designated states and jurisdictions, and therefore, the Act no longer works the way it was intended. By the authority vested in the Court, the time has come to overturn the Act and do something else.

There is no federal constitutional right to vote (despite references to it in some of the amendments.)  Perhaps the ideal "something else" would be an amendment that specifically grants the right to vote to all Americans in all elections with few restrictions -- as is customary in almost every other democracy on earth. The second choice might be to expand the provisions of the Voting Rights Act to all states without restricting its provisions to only those jurisdictions with a history of voter suppression. One of the interesting objections I've heard to that idea is that the DoJ would be "overwhelmed" with voting rights cases and issues and would be essentially paralyzed due to the sheer volume of voting rights violations. That may be. Would it necessarily be such a bad thing?

It would be in the sense that the issue would likely be litigated forever, which would more than likely mean that there would be endless delays in lifting "undue" voting restrictions, all the while endless creative attempts at enhancing voting restrictions would be undertaken. We know how these things play out.

On the other hand, I've said many times that voting as such is not the most effective means of making desirable policy changes, as the Voting Rights Act itself demonstrates. The Act was never subject to a vote of the People, of course, nor would it have been in any case. Nor, in fact, were those who voted for it in Congress elected on the understanding that the provisions of the Act would be their objective. That's not to say that the Act was somehow a mistake. It is to say that "voting" as such had little or nothing to do with the creation, passage and implementation of the Act. And so it is with most public policies especially at the Federal level. You don't get a vote on policy. You get to vote for personalities.

Policy changes generally happen through pressure from outside the electoral system, by effective and well placed advocates and activists. Which may mean high-priced lobbyists and their running dogs, or it may mean massive demonstrations in the streets, or it may mean populist uprisings of one sort or another. Strikes. Shutdowns. Resistance.

Voting by itself is generally not an effective means of accomplishing desirable change, nor is it meant to be.

But then, who really wants change, anyway?